Natalie Maines

Singer-songwriter Natalie Maines performs at the opening of the new NOKIA Theatre on October 18, 2007 in Los Angeles, California.

As lead vocalist for the Grammy Award-winning Dixie Chicks, Maines was praised by many for her music, and vilified by some for her anti-Bush comments made during the run-up to the Iraq War.

By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan

Credit: Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images

Born in Lubbock, Texas, Natalie Maines started singing at age two. After attending the prestigious Berklee College of Music on a full vocal scholarship, Maines replaced the lead vocalist in the group the Dixie Chicks.

Credit: Danny Clinch

The first Dixie Chicks album featuring Maines with sisters Emily Erwin and Martie Maguire, titled "Wide Open Spaces," was Number 1 on the Billboard Country Chart, and won the ACM Album of the Year Award.

Over ten years the Dixie Chicks became the most successful American all-girl group, winning 10 Country Music Association Awards and 13 Grammy Awards.

The Dixie Chicks in 2002. Their album, "Home," featured such hits as "Long Time Gone," "Landslide," and "Travelin' Soldier."

Credit: Monument/Columbia Records

At a 2003 concert in London during the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Natalie Maines decided to speak her mind:

"Just so you know," she told the audience, "we're on the good side with you all. We do not want this war. And we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas."

Country music stations stopped playing their songs. There were protests, boycotts, and CD crushing parties.

Several weeks after the London concert remarks, the Dixie Chicks appeared nude on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, attired only with the labels that fans and critics had assigned them. "We wanted to show the absurdity of the extreme names people have been calling us," Martie Maquire told the magazine.

Credit: Entertainment Weekly

"The whole thing was so ridiculous, and it just really feels like a made-up thing," Maines told CBS News' Lee Cowan.

After the London comments and the furor they caused, Maines apologized for being disrespectful, but even that was hard to swallow.

"My natural personality and sense of it would have been to give everybody the middle finger and walk away," she laughed.

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Three years later, the trio released their fourth studio album together, "Taking the Long Way."

Left: The Dixie Chicks (Emily Robison, Natalie Maines and Martie Maguire) pose with their trophies at the 49th Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, February 11, 2007. The outspoken country trio swept the 49th Grammy Awards with their hit single "Not Ready To Make Nice," a song that tackled their vocal criticism of President George W. Bush. The trio were winners of Best Record of the Year, Best Album of the Year, Best Song of the Year, Best Country Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal, and Best Country Album.

"When I went backstage after that, I don't know, I just was crying uncontrollably and I didn't know why," Maines told Cowan. "And looking back, I mean, it kind of felt like an end to a chapter."

Credit: GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/Getty Images

From left: Emily Robison, Natalie Maines and Martie Maguire of the Dixie Chicks perform at the opening of the new NOKIA Theatre on October 18, 2007 in Los Angeles, California.